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Hi All,
New to this forum, but not BMWs (my current garage has a 2008 135i and a 187 325ic with M50 swap and I have owned about 10 over the years.

Anyway, I have a 99 323i with a M52TU (dual Vanos), bought with a blown headgasket (overheat?), I had the head rebuilt and sourced a new shortblock since the headbolts kept pulling threads.
I took pictures during dis-assembly and when I reassembled the VANOS, I set the gears and all on the wear marks and per the pictures I used on teardown. Cams were set perfect, but when I rotated the crank through the cams moved on the VANOS stuff and I assumed once the engine ran and oil got up there it would sort itself out.
So, the engine runs, seems to idle just fine, air pump runs for a couple of minutes and then quites. in neutral engine seems to rev okay, but in gear it responds very very very slowly until about 4k rpm , then takes of like a banshee.
I am confident it has something to do with the cams advanced too much or not enough. However, I have no experience with VANOS so I do not know how to troubleshoot, or do I know if I even set it up correctly - although must be close as engine does run.
ohhhh - when running gives me a code of CAM posit sensor bank 1 bad, so I ordered and replaced Intake cam sensor - no change in performance though.

Well, sorry for being long winded but I thought more info would help you to help me.
Thanks
Rick

After I saw this thraed I'm really confused with that vanos becouse I am going to
get that vanos kit from beisan and replace camshaft position sensors .
Do you still need this tool to
or change the cam sensors and vanos seals needs?

After I saw this thraed I'm really confused with that vanos becouse I am going to
get that vanos kit from beisan and replace camshaft position sensors .
Do you still need this tool to
or change the cam sensors and vanos seals needs?

No - the "tools" are only needed if you mess with the chains/gears......